Yup, I am hard at work once more at my babysitting gig with our friend’s kid, Olivia. I know, I had to dip under the minimum wage to undercut those teenage-girl babysitters… wait… they are back in school now, right? Time to renegotiate! But it is worth it for that smile, those giggles… sigh…

I made her an awesome fort out of chairs and sheets… but she was too busy playing on her iPad… Kids these days…

But I do like her ‘action gamer’ pose…

The squishy face!!! That is her ‘blue steel’ look. She does it automatically when a camera points at her, because everybody loves the squishy face. To get the smiles, I had to plead… or catch her unaware.

After a hard morning of playing and laughing, I finally wore her out. She still does that funny thing where she lays down, crosses her legs, raises them, starts huffing and puffing and tightening up all her muscles while hanging her blanky over her head at arms length.

But before she drifted off, she did have to gaze lovingly at me one last time… because, you know, dogs, horses and kids love me. Is that an awesome picture of her or what?

Then it was back to dozing off…

That is exactly what the house should look like after a few hours of time spent playing with a kid… if you are doing it right…